ABSTRACT
Textual interpretation, employed to explode embedded conjectures about femininity, is not intrinsic to 1980s art. Conceptual and sensual feminist perspectives coexisted in the 1960s and 1970s, and both continue to be created. Although there has been an evolution of ideas and methods over almost three decades, there is no true generation gap between the 1970s and 1980s, nor have diametrically opposed modes of art making characterized each period. Feminist art of new or re- energized forms such as book-making, performance, video, media work, and ritual, eventually became universally understandable to the national and international tribe, its advocates and adversaries. The Woman's Building and Feminist Studio Workshop (FSW), a cultural center and school founded by Chicago, de Brette ville, and Los Angeles in 1973, were the focus for sharing work and organizing with women from New York and Chicago—also centers of intensive activity—and with women working without community support.
